"But couldn't you practice against the tree without me standing there?" said Orion, who had no fancy to have even this very blunt arrow directed at his face. CHAPTER XV. MOTHER RODESIA. After some very slight persuasion Diana induced Orion to put his back up against an oak tree and to allow her to shoot at him. He quickly discovered that he had little or no cause for fear. Diana's arrows, wielded with all the cunning she possessed, from the crooked bow, never went anywhere near him. They fell on the grass and startled the birds, and one little baby rabbit ran quite away, and some squirrels looked down at the children through the thick trees; but Orion had very little chance of getting hurt. "It's awfu' difficult," said Diana, whose face grew redder and redder with her efforts. "If it don't shoot pwoper, Aunt Jane won't get shotted to-night. What is to be done? Suppose you was to twy for a bit, Orion?" Orion was only too anxious to accede to this proposition. He took the bow and arrow and made valiant efforts, but in the course of his endeavors to shoot properly, the badly made bow suddenly snapped in two, and Diana, in her discomfiture, and the dashing to the ground of her hopes, burst into tears. "You is bad boy," she cried. "See what you's done. Back we goes to slav'ry--to Aunt Jane and Miss Wamsay. You is a bad, howid boy." "I aren't," said Orion, who had a very easily aroused temper. "It's you that's a horrid little girl." "Come, children; what's all this noise about?" said a voice in their ears. They turned abruptly, forgetting on the instant their own cause of quarrel, and saw a tall, swarthy-looking woman coming towards them. By this time it was beginning to get dark in the wood, but they could see the figure of the woman quite distinctly. She came close to them, and then, putting her arms akimbo, surveyed them both with a certain queer expression on her face. "Well, my little dears," she said, "and what may you two be doing in this part of the wood?" "We is pweparing to have our enemies shotted," answered Diana, in a calm, but sturdy, voice. "What's your name, gweat big woman?" "Mother Rodesia Lee," replied the woman, "and I'm fond of little children. I like to meet them in the wood. I often come into the wood, and when I see little strange children I love 'em at once. I'm a sort of mother to all little strangers who get into the woods without leave." Here she flashed a pair of black eyes full into Diana's face. But Diana met their gaze without a vestige of shrinking, with eyes as black. "We has not come without leave," she said; "you is naughty to talk that way. We has got a whole holiday to-day from our Uncle William. He didn't say nothing 'bout not going into the woods, and we has been here for lots of hours. We is going home now 'cos we is hung'y, and 'cos my bow has got bwoke. We is awfu' unhappy--we is mis'ble, but we is going home. Good-night, woman; don't keep us talkin' any longer."